Otis Jones, Gray Band with One Black Circle, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery.
And Sometimes Less is More
Otis Jones’s first show with Vito Schnabel Gallery is an important presentation of a painter whose career spans 60 years and critical acclaim—but whose circular canvases deserve much wider recognition. To call these artworks minimal feels reductive, as the artist uses acrylic and linen on plywood to create a type of aged painting-cum-sculpture with heft and roughness. Jones’s work has been described as “stubbornly original,” and he has famously declared, “I don’t hide anything. It’s a very real object.” Indeed, his muted pinks and smudged red oxides are beautiful in their own right, but it's the distressed details like the stapling that make him a cult classic.